Pope Francis' Apostolic Journey to Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) on the Occasion of World Youth Day (22-29 July 2013)

This post will feature ongoing coverage of Pope Francis' journey to Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and World Youth Day. It will be regularly updated as news and commentary becomes available.

• Program
• Missal for the Apostolic Journey
• Message of Pope Benedict XVI for the 28th World Youth Day, 2013
• Decree according to which Special Indulgences are granted to the faithful on the occasion of the 28th World Youth Day [Rio de Janeiro, 22-29 July 2013] (9 July 2013)

Schedule of Papal Events

• Meeting with journalists during the flight to Brazil (22 July 2013)
• Welcome Ceremony at the Garden of Guanabara Palace (Rio de Janeiro, 22 July 2013)
• Holy Mass in the Basilica of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Conception (Aparecida, 24 July 2013)
• Impromptu address of Pope Francis from the balcony of the Basilica of the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida after the celebration of Holy Mass (24 July 2013)
• Visit to the St. Francis of Assisi of the Providence of God Hospital - V.O.T. (Rio de Janeiro, 24 July 2013)
• Greeting to the young people from Italy at the conclusion of the visit to the St. Francis of Assisi of the Providence of God Hospital - V.O.T. (Rio de Janeiro, 24 July 2013)
• Blessing of the olympic flags at the City Palace of Rio de Janeiro (25 July 2013)
• Visit to the Community of Varginha [Manguinhos] (Rio de Janeiro, 25 July 2013)
• Meeting with the youth from Argentina gathered in the Cathedral of San Sebastián (25 July 2013)
• Welcoming Ceremony by the young people on the waterfront of Copacabana (Rio de Janeiro, 25 July 2013)
• Recital of the Angelus Domini from the central balcony of the Archbishopric of St. Joaquin (Rio de Janeiro, 26 July 2013)
• Way of the Cross with the young people on the waterfront of Copacabana (Rio de Janeiro, 26 July 2013)
• Holy Mass with the Bishops of the 28th WYD and with Priests, Religious and Seminarians in the Cathedral of St Sebastian (Rio de Janeiro, 27 July 2013)
• Meeting with the Brazil's leaders gathered at the Municipal Theatre (Rio de Janeiro, 27 July 2013)
• Meeting with the Bishops of Brazil in the Archbishop's House of Rio de Janeiro (27 July 2013)
• Prayer Vigil with the young people at Campus Fidei (Guaratiba, 27 July 2013)
• Holy Mass for the 28th World Youth Day at Campus Fidei (Guaratiba, 28 July 2013)
• Recital of the Angelus Domini at Campus Fidei (Guaratiba, 28 July 2013)
• Meeting with the Coordinating Committee of CELAM at the Sumaré Study Center (Rio de Janeiro, 28 July 2013)
• Meeting with the Volunteers of the 28th WYD at the Pavillon 5 of the Rio Center (Rio de Janeiro, 28 July 2013)
• Farewell Ceremony at the Galeão/Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport (Rio de Janeiro, 28 July 2013)

Pope Francis drew a reported 3 million flag-waving, rosary-toting faithful to Rio’s Copacabana beach on Saturday for the final evening of World Youth Day. Source: Capital Gazette, AP, Filipe Dana

News

• Pope Francis Meets With Volunteers Before Departing Rio Zenit. 07/29/13:

  Before leaving Brazil, Pope Francis meet with an estimated 15,000 volunteers at the Congress Center Pavilion in Rio de Janeiro. The group was only a sliver of the 60,000 volunteers who worked in the past two years preparing for World Youth Day. The Holy Father expressed his gratitude for their work.

  The Pope also thanked them for “the countless little ways by which you have made this World Youth Day an unforgettable experience of faith. With your smiles, your acts of kindness and your willingness to serve, you have shown that 'it is more blessed to give than to receive'”.

• From the IOR to the gay lobby: Pope Francis tells all on flight from Rio to Rome, by Andrea Tornielli. La Stampa "The Vatican Insider" 07/29/13. On the flight from Rio to Rome, Francis answered dozens of questions, some personal, some about the sensitive and burning issues concerning the Vatican.
• On Gay Priests, Pope Francis Asks, ‘Who Am I to Judge?’, by Rachel Donadio. New York Times 07/29/13:

  ... brief remarks by Pope Francis suggesting that he would not judge priests for their sexual orientation, made aboard the papal airplane on the way back from his first foreign trip, to Brazil, resonated through the church. Never veering from church doctrine opposing homosexuality, Francis did strike a more compassionate tone than that of his predecessors, some of whom had largely avoided even saying the more colloquial “gay.”

• Rio's Copacabana beach transformed as three million Catholics pack sands for Sunday Mass, by Nick Squires. Telegraph UK. 07/28/13. It is usually synonymous with unbridled hedonism, but Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach was transformed into a vast encampment of the faithful on Sunday when three million young Catholics squeezed onto every last inch of sand for the climax of the Pope's week-long visit to Brazil.
• Pope commissions young people to be missionaries without borders, by Cindy Wooden. Catholic News Service. 07/28/13:

  Pope Francis commissioned some 3 million young people to join forces and form what could be called Missionaries Without Borders.

  "Where does Jesus send us?" he asked World Youth Day pilgrims July 28. "There are no borders, no limits: He sends us to everyone."

• “We need a Church capable of warming hearts” La Stampa 07/27/13:

  Francis was addressing the Brazilian Church but today’s lunch with the region’s cardinals and bishops in Rio’s Archbishopric was much more than this. The Pope laid out a plan for his pontificate. He presented the image of a Church which walks beside its faithful in order to be truly missionary and “is able to make sense of the “night” contained in the flight of so many of our brothers and sisters from Jerusalem.” In order to do this, the Church must stop being “too cold, perhaps too caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas, perhaps the world seems to have made the Church a relic of the past, unfit for new questions.” It needs to learn to be simple again, warm people’s hearts and “rediscover the maternal womb of mercy.”

• Penitents, prisoners and pilgrims: Pope meets youth up close, by Francis X. Rocca. Catholic News Service 07/26/13:

  Pope Francis spent the morning and early afternoon of July 26 with about two dozen young people from different countries and diverse backgrounds, in a range of encounters that illustrated his characteristic emphasis on inclusion and reconciliation.

  The most dramatic meeting was the half hour he spent in the Rio de Janeiro archbishop's residence with eight young offenders from four area prisons. ...

• A million young people jam Rio's Copacabana beach to try to see pope. Catholic News Service. 07/26/13.
• Fears grow for Pope's safety in Brazil | Pope Francis forced into helicopter to avoid protests The Telegraph 07/23/13:

  The Pontiff was forced to arrive at Guanabara palace, the house of the governor of Rio state, by military helicopter, as protesters clashed with riot police using tear gas, water cannon and stun grenades.

  While some expressed anger over the cost of the £35 million papal visit, the main focus of the protests was against the Brazilian government, which last month faced violent street protests over corruption, poor public services, and the expense of hosting next year's soccer World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

• In Rio slum, pope denounces corruption, 'culture of selfishness' Catholic News Service. 07/25/13.
• Pope returns to Marian shrine, entrusts WYD to Mary's care Catholic News Service. 07/24/13.
• 400,000 brave wind, rain for WYD opening Mass on Copacabana beach Catholic News Service. 07/24/13.
• Crowds in Rio swarm pope, who wanted to be 'close to the people', by By Francis X. Rocca. Catholic News Service. 07/22/13.
• Bomb found at Aparecida shrine ahead of Pope's visit Catholic News Agency. 07/22/13:

  “It was a homemade device with little potential to cause fatalities,” according to a statement of the Brazilian Air Force. “It is worth pointing out that such episodes formed part of our security forces’ training in Aparecida and at no point were civilians' lives in danger.”

  The bomb has already been destroyed. It was discovered around 11:30 am in Rio, during the completion of simulated exercises by security forces, according to Brazil's Grupo Estado.

• Pope Francis Meets Benedict, Asks for His Prayers During WYD, by Edward Pentin. 7/19/13.
• Pope Francis’ Style Changes Papal Flight, by David Uebbing. National Catholic Register 07/22/13.

John Allen, Jr.

• Pope on homosexuals: 'Who am I to judge?' 07/29/13. "The following are highlights of that Q&A with the pope; a full transcript has been promised soon."
• Francis message to CELAM: Bishops and priests should not "infantalize" lay faithful La Stampa ("Vatican Insider") 07/28/13. In his speech to the Coordinating Committee of CELAM, the Pope talked about the temptation of clericalism and asked pastors to be poor and merciful.
• For Francis, confessions the most important thing he'll do all week 07/26/13:

  It's quite possible, however, that for Francis himself, the most important thing he'll do all week comes Friday morning, when he moves across town to Rio's Boa Vista Park to hear five confessions.

  Every pope seems to have a signature spiritual idea. For John Paul II, it was courage: "Be not afraid!" was his catchphrase to invite the church to recapture its missionary swagger after years of introspection and self-doubt. For Benedict XVI, it was "faith and reason," the idea that religious belief and intellectual reflection need one another to remain healthy.

  For Francis, the best early candidate for his signature touch is mercy, expressed in his repeated emphasis on God's endless capacity to forgive.

• In Brazilian favela, Pope Francis becomes apostle of the slums 07/25/13. On Thursday, in a notorious favela of Rio called Varginha, in a small community known as Manguinhos, the Catholic church was unmistakably visible. The pope came to the slum to say, "The church is with you."
• Singing in the rain at Copacabana 07/25/13.
• At Marian shrine, Francis is world's pastor 07/24/13. At Brazil's Marian shrine of Aparecida, Francis once again came off as a simple pastor -- albeit one now playing on the world's biggest religious stage.
• "I want to kiss the Pope's feet, because I am not worthy that he comes into my house" Lat Stampa ("The Vatican Insider") 07/23/13. Great excitement and joy abounds among the inhabitants of one of Rio de Janeiro’s “favelas” (shanty towns) as they prepare for “the Pope of the Poor” to visit them.
• For pope in Brazil, how much frenzy is too much? 07/22/13:

  Day one of Pope Francis’s much-anticipated homecoming to Latin America raised in exquisite form a question that Vatican security personnel have faced frequently in Rome since his election four and a half months ago. That question is: How much of a good thing is too much?

• Humble pope asks permission to enter Brazil 07/22/13.
• WYD: “You don’t seem so fierce to me,” Pope tells journalists La Stampa 07/22/13.
• Pope on plane: No to a 'throw-away' culture 07/22/13:

  Francis did not hold a press conference, saying bluntly, "I don't give interviews." He spoke without notes for about five minutes to reporters aboard the plane. The pope then stood at the front of the economy compartment on the plane for almost an hour, greeting each journalist one by one.

• Francis steps into a revolution in Brazil 07/18/13:

  While he's busy launching one revolution in Rome, overhauling entrenched ways of doing business in the Vatican, Pope Francis is about to step into the middle of another one in the streets of Brazil when he visits Rio de Janeiro July 22-28 for World Youth Day. Much of the drama of his first overseas trip boils down to whether Brazil's discontented masses will see the government-subsidized Catholic event as part of the problem, or Francis as an icon of the solution.

• Cost concerns loom for pope's Brazil trip 07/16/13. "Brazilian media are reporting concerns about cost, both in financial and ecological terms."
• Beneath the hype, Rio a major test for Francis 05/24/13.

Commentary

• What do pope's remarks on gays mean?, by Kevin Clarke. CNN.com. 07/30/13.
• Towards a Non-Romantic Theology of Women, by Anna Sutherland. First Things "First Thoughts" 07/29/13. Less noticed than references to homosexuality in Pope Francis’ widely circulated remarks to the press on the Rio-to-Rome papal airplane was this comment on developing a theology of women.
• World Youth Days, by Fr. Joseph A. Komonchak. Commonweal 07/29/13:

  I have two questions about World Youth Days. The first is prompted by reading that some three million people attended the papal Mass on the Copacabana beach. Is the Mass intended for such massive gatherings? Aren’t there other types of services that could be devised instead? I don’t think that every significant occasion in the life of the Church requires that a Mass be celebrated.

  And then, how broad, how deep, and how enduring is the effect of such “Catholic Woodstocks”?

• Jerusalem's Bishop Shomali: " Francis is truly the Pope of the poor" 07/28/13. Jerusalem’s auxiliary bishop tells how WYD has helped young Catholics from the Holy Land, and discusses the possibility of the Pope’s visit there.
• Francis and the importance of confession, by Andrea Tornielli. La Stampa "The Vatican Insider":

  That Sunday, in the homily he pronounced during mass in the parish of Saint Anne in the Vatican, the Pope mentioned another chat he had had with a penitent who did not believe he was worthy of forgiveness because “he had done some really awful things.” Fr. Bergoglio replied to him: “Go to Jesus! He likes people talking to him about these things” He forgets; he has a special gift for forgetting. He forgets, he kisses you, embraces you and tells you: “I don’t condemn you, go and sin no more!” This is the only advice he gives.”

  Francis also talked about the sacrament of penance during the Pentecost vigil with the ecclesial movements, when he confessed he missed having the freedom to go out and listen to people’s confessions in the parish whenever he pleased. He listed the questions he usually asks those who come to confess about giving money to the poor: “Do you give money to the poor? When you give money to the poor do you look them in the eye? When you give money to the poor do you touch their hand? Touching a poor person’s hand means touching “the body of Christ,” Francis explained.

• Bergoglio sets about rebuilding the Church, just as St. Francis did. Italian newspaper "La Stampa" interviews former Franciscan [and liberation theologian], Leonardo Boff. La Stampa 07/24/13.
• Francis in Brazil: Spirituality and the Challenges of Globalization, by Vincent J. Miller. America 07/23/13:

  As Francis began his journey to World Youth Day, in his comments to reporters he touched upon the specifics he will face in Brazil and sounded what are becoming familiar notes from his papacy. The two will come together in a provocative way in Brazil.

  Francis spoke of the effect of the global economic crisis upon the young, who are “at risk” of becoming a generation deprived of work. This deprives them not only of dignity, but “strips them of the possibility of belonging.” “We are used to a discarding culture, all too often with the elderly. But now, with so many young people out of work, the disposable culture comes even to them. We must end this habit to discard!” Against this isolation and exclusion of this disposable culture, Francis called instead for a “culture of inclusion, a culture of encounter.”

  This brief comment encapsulates well Francis’s noteworthy manner of bringing together spiritual questions with structural analysis of the global economy. This is not at all easy to do. The temptation is always to reduce one to the other.

• Right wing 'generally not happy' with Francis, Chaput says Interview with Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. National Catholic Reporter 07/23/13.
• Francis a 'one-man show,' Brooklyn's DiMarzio says. Interview with Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, NY. National Catholic Reporter 07/23/13.